“Hear me out. I can’t send someone in to kill Drake, because then Chitman would take over, and from what I’ve seen and heard from Callen, Chitman is worse than Drake. Drake’s angry and maybe even a bit crazy, but he’s smart and strategic. Chitman is a loose cannon. The HEV virus cannot remain with Drake or even worse, fall into Chitman’s hands. This isn’t about you challenging Drake to become alpha, at least not long term. You don’t have to remain long enough to win over the pack or fight for your right to maintain the position. I’d never send you away like that. You can return here. I’m guessing you’ll have no choice, actually. You only need to become alpha long enough to secure that virus, Hayden, nothing more. It’s the only way we’ll save Liam’s pack and ultimately avoid a human-shifter war.”
Hayden shuddered at the thought of a full-out war with the humans. Thousands would die on both sides, maybe more. Mila leaned her head against his shoulder. He slid his arm around her waist. His Mila. Hayden looked around the room. Damien and Tess were trying to conceive the last he had heard. Blade and Anna’s child was due in another five or six months. What would happen to them if he didn’t hand Drake over to Agent Sloan? Mila’s scent filled his lungs, calming him. What would happen to her. . .
“I’m sorry, Damien. This is one order I cannot follow.”
* * *
MILA
After Hayden refused Damien’s request, they left. Hayden had stopped talking altogether. He walked her to Aloe’s so she could dress properly. When he didn’t accompany her inside, she knew something more was bothering him.
“Just wait a few minutes, Hayden. It won’t take me long to dress. I don’t think you should be alone right now. We don’t even have to talk if you don’t want to.”
He kissed her forehead, which was nice, but somewhat disconcerting. The kiss lacked Hayden’s usual personal touch, his fire. It was as if he were on autopilot.
“I need to be alone, Mila. I hope you understand.”
She didn’t. “Are you sure?”
“There’s still a guard outside. I dismissed two to return to border patrol. Unless you prefer more.”
He would know better than her if she needed any guards at all. She didn’t need any guards, but Hayden was being cautious. “That’s fine. I’m just heading to the lab. Will you come get me when you’re ready?”
“Ready for what?”
“Talk. A meal. Sex. Anything.”
“Watch it, Doctor. Or someone might accuse you of playing mind games with your patients.”
That was more like Hayden. Joking, flirting. He probably simply needed time. “Later then?” she said as she reached up and combed his thick black hair back with her fingers. “Whatever you want to do later, Hayden. Your choice.”
The corners of his mouth quirked. “The best offer I’ve had in a while.” He kissed her cheek. It wasn’t a kiss on the lips, but it would do. “Later, sunshine.”
As soon as he left, Mila dressed and headed to the lab. While she was crazy busy with cataloging results and setting up the next stage of testing, the day dragged, likely because she kept looking at the door.
“He’s not coming,” Mila said.
“Give him time,” Anna replied.
“It’s been eight hours.”
“And Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
“You’re not helping.”
“Sorry. How’s that last test going?”
“Slow as molasses.”
“Hmm. Pancakes.”
“This isn’t a word association game.”
“You’re the one who mentioned molasses. I can’t help if it made me think of pancakes. Ooh. . . pecan pie! I miss pecan pie. And now I’m hungry again. Thanks a lot. Are you coming with me?” Anna said as she rose and grabbed her coat.
“You could just find something in the kitchen here.”
“Not pancakes. Besides, I think with how hungry I’ve been, I’m better off taking the long walk to the cookhouse to get some exercise in before I turn into a boat.”
“You’re not going to turn into a boat.”
“Is that Mila the doctor promising or Mila the friend who doesn’t want me to worry?”
“Both.”
“He’ll come for you.”
“I know,” Mila said, but in truth, she didn’t feel so confident.
Mila went through the rest of the day without seeing Hayden. She had her guard trailing behind her that evening, but no sign of Hayden. She went to sleep in her bed at Aloe’s and woke, alone, cold, and disheartened. It wasn’t like Hayden to break a promise. As she dressed, she played over everything in her head for the hundredth time. Ultimately, she had come to the same conclusion as Damien. She wondered if Hayden had too.
“Hi,” Hayden said from the sofa as Mila descended the stairs.
Oh, how she had missed him. It had only been a day, but they had never talked about what had happened at Damien’s. Her stomach was churning and her wolf was pacing, worrying about Hayden. She had wanted to be there for him, to support him, but he hadn’t needed or wanted her.
“Hi back,” she said, standing at the base of the stairs.
“You okay?”
“I should be asking you that. No one’s seen you since yesterday.”
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.”
“Care to share?”
“Maybe I should go.” He got up to leave.
“We don’t have to talk,” she said, knowing she sounded desperate, but she was. She didn’t know how to help Hayden, but letting him walk out that door, alone, wasn’t the answer.
He grabbed her coat off the hook on the wall and held it open for her. She slid her arms in, relieved that wherever he was going, she was going with him.
They walked for an hour, before Hayden finally reached for her hand. She was so cold, and he was always so warm.
“Did you ask Anna?” he said.
“Anna? Oh, about the bridge. I’ve been preoccupied with everything else.”
He swung her around, pushed back the hood of her coat, and slid her hair to the side. The cut on her forehead was not fully healed. The skin had come together, but the area was still red and tender. Just like it would be on a human.
“Damien was right,” he said out of the blue. “My loyalty is split. I know what I should do, but I can’t. Drake’s my brother, and no one seems to understand that.” He stopped on the edge of the river. Chunks of ice flowed downstream. If the temperature continued to remain low, the river would ice over completely in the next few days. “Will you come with me if I have to leave?”
“What do you mean ‘have to leave’?”
“If I disobey Damien, he’ll want me to leave. He can’t have shifters disobeying him. Dissension of any sort, especially from his second, is dangerous. It spreads through a pack fast. Even if Damien doesn’t force me to leave, I still have to go. I don’t want to cause him or the pack any problems.”
“There was a time I felt guilty for everything bad that happened to me,” she said suddenly. She hadn’t planned this speech, but sometimes the heart recognized pain, especially pain it’s been through. “I felt as if I wasn’t good enough, nice enough, strong enough. Then I realized none of what was wrong between Vance and me was my doing, except for letting myself get involved with him in the first place. My parents forced me into that relationship, and I didn’t know how to walk away. I should have run from him, from them, from the pack. But I was young and scared of being a lone wolf.”
He growled. “You were pressured. There’s nothing to forgive in your case, no amends to make. You were the victim and you fought to survive. But what happened between me and Drake. . . I couldn’t save Drake just as I couldn’t save Reina. Both times I saw what was happening, but I acted too slowly to save them. Drake was a sweet boy when he was younger, before Logan took him. I failed to protect Drake from my uncle, and now because of my failures, everyone expects me to kill Drake.”
“You were only twelve, a child yourself, when Logan took Drake
, Hayden. There was nothing you could have done.”
“There were a million things I could have done. I should have kept sneaking over there—”
“You tried and you were punished. Every time. Then your remaining family threatened. You did all you could possibly do. You have to accept that.”
“I could have had someone else give him messages from me.”
“You’re looking for ways to prove your guilt because you felt helpless—you still feel helpless—to save your brother from an impossible situation. That’s what this is.”
Hayden thrust his hands through his hair.
“If I’d been stronger, I would have found a way of ending my uncle earlier.”
He wasn’t hearing her. “A twelve-year-old against an alpha? You need to let go of the guilt, Hayden. Let go of the past. You can’t change it, and Drake’s not the brother you protected as a kid. He’s a grown shifter, responsible for thousands of deaths. At some point you will have to put the brother you knew to rest in your heart so we can eliminate Drake, the alpha who’s about to kill thousands maybe millions of humans. That is the shifter who Damien’s asking you to fight, not the ten-year-old brother you love.”
“I can’t separate him in my head. Drake will always be my younger brother, the kid I didn’t help, the kid who still needs help and whom I’m failing to help.”
Mila took a deep breath. “Then Damien needs to find another to challenge him. Maybe Callen or Frank.”
“It doesn’t work that way. They’re not from the pack. They can’t challenge. They’d be stopped at the border.”
“But you can challenge? Even though you killed the prior alpha?”
“Yes. Pack rules.”
“Then do it.”
“Excuse me?”
“Can you take Drake down?”
“Maybe. Probably. It’s hard to say.”
“Hayden, there’s no other way to solve this situation with Sloan. And one way or another, you need to come to terms with the past and the present. You need to confront Drake, even if that means doing so through a challenge.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. You’re a strong shifter. I’ve seen you. You can do anything you set your mind to. I believe in you.”
“Enough to blood-bond me?” he said with a hopeful smile.
His question stunned. She wasn’t expecting that, especially not right now. She couldn’t blood-bond him, could she? His smile was hopeful.
“I don’t think this is the time to discuss blood-bonding.”
“I need you, Mila. Just thinking about going up against my brother, possibly killing him. . . I’m confused.”
“Talking about a blood-bond will only confuse matters further.”
He shook his head as he drew her close. “Everything is clearer when I’m with you. It’s easier to see what’s important and what isn’t. All day and night yesterday, I was walking around in a fog. But being here with you, I can see more clearly. We’re good for each other. Blood-bonding you is the only thing that makes sense to me in this whole damn mess.”
He did look confused and as if his confidence had been shot. Which is why this conversation shouldn’t be happening now. “We can talk about blood-bonding after you hand Drake over to the government, okay?” she said, sliding from his embrace.
His brows furrowed. “No, it’s not okay. That’s at least the third time you’ve avoided discussing this with me. I’m not Vance.”
“God, don’t you think I know that, Hayden?”
“Then why won’t you blood-bond me?”
“It’s too early.”
“You were willing to blood-bond Vance, but not me.”
It wasn’t a question, it was a statement. His tone and face had hardened as they tended to do when Hayden contained his emotions. She wasn’t doing much better, especially with her wolf’s incessant whining distracting her. Mila wanted to run away from the stress and especially from being in the presence of a strong shifter who was angry. Except this was Hayden, who would never hurt her no matter how angry he was.
“Vance lied! I never wanted to blood-bond him and he certainly never wanted to blood-bond me. That’s why he hit me so much!”
“That makes no sense,” he said, looking more confused than before.
“It makes perfect sense! No enforcer, no second, wants to blood-bond a weak shifter. That’s what I am, Hayden. A weak shifter. Vance wouldn’t dare weaken his abilities by blood-bonding me and he punished me for keeping him from knowing the oneness that comes with blood-bonding!”
Mila gasped. She’d finally told Hayden, but this wasn’t the way she had wanted to do so. She had been caught up in simply loving him that she had been afraid to ruin what they had together. She took a step toward Hayden, but he stepped back, his arm extended to keep her from going near him.
“You’re a weak shifter? That’s why you’re healing so slowly. . .” He scrubbed his face with his hand, trying to let the news sink in. “That’s why you avoided getting the treatment. You lied to me, Mila. You’ve been lying to me all along.”
“It’s not like that—”
“That’s exactly what it’s like!” he shouted, as he finally let his emotions show. “You lied to me, from the start. Even after we slept together, you continued to lie to me. And just now, you didn’t plan on telling me, it just came out.”
She took another step forward.
“Don’t,” he warned, adding a growl this time.
That growl stopped her, made her wolf curl into a ball, as Mila wanted to do.
“What else are you lying about?”
“Nothing.”
“You lied to get into the pack. You lied to stay. You used me, didn’t you? You needed me to advocate for you. You couldn’t seduce Damien because he was already blood-bonded.”
“What! That’s crazy!” Her heart was racing as she scrambled to figure out how to control this situation before it got any worse. “Listen to me, Hayden—”
“No! I’m done listening! I should have seen it earlier. You were desperate to get away from Vance. You said so yourself. And I get that, I really do. No one deserves being in an abusive relationship. You didn’t know us, or whether we’d take you in, so you made yourself indispensable to us. First, with promises to create a vaccine. Was any of that even true or are you pushing around lab specimens all day, claiming to be working on the vaccine?”
“How dare you—”
“You didn’t think Damien would let you stay unless you had value. Your words, not mine. But to drive home the deal, to ensure he’d allow you to stay, you wrapped me around your finger until I fought for you to stay here. And I did exactly that.” Hayden’s laugh was derisive, eerie. “Oh, you played me well, Mila. Well, here’s a newsflash for you, sunshine.”
He said her nickname with such derision that a shudder traveled down her spine. She couldn’t believe this was happening. Everything she had ever feared was happening. It was all blowing up in her face, and it was her own damn fault.
“I would have helped keep you safe from Vance no matter what. I protect the shifters of this pack and the second you asked for help, you would have had it, no questions. But using me, making me feel as if I mattered to you—”
“You DO matter to me, Hayden. I love you!” she shouted, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Love? You don’t know the meaning of the word. The sad part is you probably never will. You’re just like all the rest of them.”
“Them?”
“The weak shifters. With my reputation here, they think I’m desperate enough to blood-bond a weak shifter, so they throw themselves at me, hope I’ll blood-bond them to strengthen their abilities.”
“I told you I didn’t want to blood-bond.”
“Yet. You didn’t want to blood-bond me yet. That’s because you’re smart, you’re playing the long-game. I couldn’t fight Drake if you weakened me through the blood-bond. No, you’re trying to send me off to kill my brother so that when I
return I’ll be too much of an emotional wreck to see through your games. We’d blood-bond, making you stronger and me weaker. That’s why you didn’t shift when I carried you back to my place. It’s not that you couldn’t, it’s that I would have seen and recognized you for the weak shifter that you are. Worse, I would have seen you for who you are. . . a liar and a user. Serves me right for falling for you.”
“Hayden, please let me explain!”
“No! Don’t come near me, Mila. Continue living at Aloe’s, work at the lab. You don’t have to worry. I won’t say anything to Damien. I won’t be responsible for sending you back to that monster. Stay here, enjoy the pack. Hell, screw Benji and Lars for all I care, just stay away from me!”
Hayden shifted and ran off. There was nothing left for Mila to do but sink to the snow and cry.
Chapter Sixteen
MILA
Mila pushed away from the microscope and rubbed her eyes. “I can’t stop thinking about him, Anna. Everything a shifter could say and do wrong, I did.”
Anna leaned back in her chair and rubbed her growing belly. Her curly blonde hair was pulled back. The young woman looked a bit tired but otherwise healthy. Mila had been taking her vitals and had performed one obstetrics exam on her, but she really wished she could convince Anna to find an OBGYN in Devil’s Peak.
“I love Hayden. That’s why I should have told him the truth in the beginning. But I. . . I knew he’d leave me the moment he found out I’m a weak shifter. I was living in a fantasy world. Figured the longer I avoided telling him the truth that maybe he’d come to love me enough that my being weak wouldn’t matter. Of course, it matters. Strong shifters don’t blood-bond weak shifters.”
Anna sighed. “I think you have a bigger problem than you realize.”
Mila raised her head. “How so?”
“You lack confidence. You’ve allowed your self-worth to be tied up in your shifter abilities, as if you have nothing else to offer the world or Hayden.”
Did she do that? No, Anna couldn’t be right. She’d had plenty of confidence to leave home, to go to school, and return as a doctor. She had escaped Vance. Then again, she wouldn’t have been trapped into a relationship with Vance in the first place had she had confidence in herself and been able to see herself as more than simply a weak shifter.
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